An American Muslim from Pennsylvania pleaded guilty on Tuesday for attempting online to incite attacks against U.S. targets. Emerson Winfield Begolly, 22, served as the moderator for an English-language version of a radical Islamic website. He faces up to 10 years in prison for the charges.

A white Newberry County, S.C., man was sentenced to 28 years in prison for shooting his black friend and dragging his body behind his pickup truck. The case caused racial tensions in the town after the New Black Panther Party protested the fact that the killing was not declared a hate crime. Prosecutors said there was no evidence that it was a hate crime.

A man from Ulster County, N.Y., has been sentenced to six months in prison for attempting to intimidate local public officials with false indictments. Jeffrey Burfeindt, 48, is a regular in the antigovernment “sovereign citizens” community, having previously been arrested in 2009 for trespassing at a foreclosed home and filing fake liens against government workers totaling $1.2 trillion.

Police in Washington, D.C., have arrested a man in connection with an assault of five gay women outside a nightclub. Christian Washington, 19, was detained by police Tuesday in a case in which police have come under fire for refusing to take a report from the victims. The victims allege they were all punched in the face and body when they spurned the attempt of several men to flirt with them.

An Orange County, Calif., man pleaded guilty to setting three fires in a local church because he was opposed to the church’s teachings on masturbation. Izad Chavoshan, 32, was charged with arson and a hate crime, which makes him eligible for up to 20 years in prison.

An Orange County, Calif., man pleaded guilty to setting three fires in a local church because he was opposed to the church’s teachings on masturbation. Izad Chavoshan, 32, was charged with arson and a hate crime, which makes him eligible for up to 20 years in prison.

I find it interesting that neither SacBee nor the SPLC mentions what those teachings were. Considering that the subtitle for this blog is “Keeping an eye on the radical right”, one would be forgiven in assuming this was an act of right-wing terrorism against a progressive church because they were insufficiently conservative on sexual issues. Yet The LA Times reports that Izad Chavoshan was disgruntled because of the churches anti-masturbation stance, so it is doubtful that this was the criminal act of a radical right-winger.

Jonas Rand

Excuse me, but how is it a hate crime to light fires in a church because you and the clergy have divergent opinions about wanking?